Joaquin Miller

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Yesterday I finished reading A Deeper Wild, a biography of Joaquin Miller by local author Bill Sullivan. I knew of Miller from my years in Oakland, having spent really quite a lot of time in Joaquin Miller Park, which is mostly redwood forest full of running trails. I'm pretty sure I've also seen a photograph of early Florence, my birthplace, with Miller a distinguished visitor. However, his actual life story was pretty crazy! Gold miner, horse thief, wanted criminal, Indian fighter (very briefly and accidentally)... teacher, pony express rider (for "a" pony express, not "the" Pony Express), lawyer, county judge... then flamboyant "Western" poet in London. I especially liked reading about Eugene City, Oregon, in the 1860s; his family had settled just north of here and when their farm failed he moved with them into a two-story house at Fifth and Oak. I also liked when his second wife, a better poet than he, divorced him when she found out he was already married, to a Wintu Indian whom he'd abandoned during his legal troubles in California. The book was extensively researched and quite entertaining.